Suicides prompt banks to suspend eviction notices

Spain's banks have vowed to suspend for two years evictions of the most needy, after the second suicide in a month by people facing not only expulsion from their houses, but lifelong debt. Around 400,000 eviction notices have been issued over the past five years, and the main political parties have met to consider changing the laws. But for the people facing eviction, there's still pessimism. The World Today caught up with a woman we first met in March, who's now facing imminent eviction from her home.

Transcript

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ELEANOR HALL: To Spain now, where banks have responded to the second suicide in a month by a person facing eviction by vowing to suspend evictions for two years for the most needy.

In Spain banks can not only foreclose on homes of people unable to pay their mortgages but also keep charging for the remaining debt.

The banks have issued 400,000 eviction notices issued in the last five years, and Spain's main political parties are now considering changing the eviction laws.

Mary Gearin reports from Madrid.

LUDMILLA LOPEZ: Ola.

MARY GEARIN: We arrive to meet Ludmilla Lopez at her flat in a working class suburb half an hour out of Madrid.

The 40-year-old greets us with smiles. Her 13-year-old daughter is at school, she has time to talk, and she serves us some coffee her brother sent from Ecuador.

But the smiles disappear when she shows us her eviction notices - not just one, but one every week, four now in total.

They've been slipped under her door anonymously, adding to her anxiety.

MARY GEARIN: When The World Today caught up with Ludmilla Lopez back back in March she was nervously waiting for eviction.

Now the date is set for December.

How have you been feeling since you got these papers week after week?

LUDMILLA LOPEZ (translation): At first very nervous, very anxious, very sad. But after four or five papers now the feeling is resignation.

MARY GEARIN: According to Spanish law, Ludmilla Lopez now bears a lifelong debt of more than $350,000, even after her flat is repossessed and sold, all because she fell behind in her mortgage repayments.

She fell ill she says and couldn't continue working long hours with the elderly, nor at her cleaning job.

And Ludmilla Lopez is in tears when I ask about the amounts she was asked to pay.

LUDMILLA LOPEZ (translation): She was paying 1,200 euros per month, then 2,300 euros, then 2,700 euros. It was increasing.

MARY GEARIN: So what do you think is going to happen from here?

LUDMILLA LOPEZ (translation): She's going to be evicted, because the last papers say that they are coming with the lockers and the policemen. She's afraid.

MARY GEARIN: While banks have now vowed to suspend evictions for two years for those in extreme need, Ludmilla Lopez is sceptical.

LUDMILLA LOPEZ (translation): She doesn't feel very hopefully, very hopeful with the new laws because for the moment it's too abstract, and she doesn't feel hope.

MARY GEARIN: There was the story of the suicide last week. Did you hear about that and what did you think?

LUDMILLA LOPEZ (translation): She feels sad but she thinks that you have to still fight because you can kill yourself but the debt pass to your children, to your family, the debt doesn't die with you.

So you have to endure yourself and persist, but she understand the desperation of the moment when the police come to your house and they say it's over.

MARY GEARIN: Ludmilla Lopez worries for her daughter. She says teachers report she is distracted in class.

She asks, how can the banks ask for repayment, when she and her daughter can't eat.

As we talk, Ludmilla Lopez gets a phone call.

(Sound of phone ringing)

It's from an anti-eviction activist group asking how she is. She says they are like family now.

LUDMILLA LOPEZ (translation): From all this horrible thing there is a good news, that is the support of the people, of the neighbourhood. They have lawyers, they can defend themselves.

MARY GEARIN: Ludmilla Lopez will hang on for her daughter, she says, hoping for the debt to be written off, as will thousands of other Spaniards in her situation.